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Published: December 7th 2005
Hi Everyone, thanks for all you emails.......keep them coming!
Just come back from a 20 day trek in Everest, superb but bloody cold!
Decided to follow in Edmond Hillary’s footsteps (just missed the small matter of the summit).
After 8 days of walking through villages and not seeing any mountains we started to
think we’d made a wrong turn somewhere. We popped into a school for directions and then thought we should make a huge donation. Unfortunately owing to the stock at the local random hut we only managed to summon together 20 pens for the 150 children (still they were very high quality pens).
The trail to Everest was pretty amazing, but rather too much up and down - we worked out that we were climbing the equivalent of Ben Nevis every day. Amazing what the locals carry including farm yard animals, TV’s and even houses and put us to shame puffing along with our small packs.
Finally reached the mountains and managed to pick up a guide to help us cross one of the hairy passes called Cho-La which made things easier. We slowly gained altitude until we were 5km above sea level and then
things got really cold, but we caught our first views of Everest which made it all worth while.
Back in Katmandu we cast our vegetarian ways aside (sorry Maz and Mickey) and set off in search of some meat. LJ knew of some fantastic steak house him and DJ had visited 3yrs ago and the only thing standing in our way was the name and venue! Not a clue! Eventually Rum Doodles (not an traditional steak house name) was found and whilst eating our food we could see Hillary's signature on the wall from 1953.
With a few days to kill before Bhutan LJ came up with the fabulous idea of rafting. To be honest I wasn’t completely convinced especially since the “one arm Gilly” incident but it turned out to be the funniest 2 days ever.
If you can imagine LJ in a Helly Hansen Thermal top and a Long John Wetsuit on (no arms) then you would agree he looked like a competitor at a weaklings weight lifting championship!
After getting stuck between two rocks ( a re-occurring problem) our guide decided to try and move the boat himself, resulting in the boat starting
to flip over. In a vain attempt to stop it we all dived to the high side ........except Gail (a girl on the trip) who had inexplicably managed to become wedged under the central boister. Timed impeccably whilst I was struggling to free her and everyone panicking LJ then commented “this would be quite nice if we weren’t at 180 degrees” I was crying with laughter!
We saved the boat ...hurrah.... but on the way back down the guide, Gail and myself (based at the back) were inadvertently thrown out of the boat due to the whiplash! All very exciting and apparently we are doing it all again down the Zambesi in Africa!
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carly
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imissyouguys!
you look like you are having so much fun! really wishing i was there too! speak soon. love C xxxx